Trainer Ben Davison, who was part of last Saturday's corner team for Billy Joe Saunders, says the former two-division world champion was looking to come out for the ninth round in his super middleweight unification clash with Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez.
At AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Canelo stopped Saunders in eight rounds to unify the WBO, WBC, WBA world titles.
During the eight, Saunders suffered a fractured orbital bone when Canelo connected flush with a big uppercut on the right eye.
When Saunders went back to the corner, he advised his team that his vision was gone in the right eye and the fight was stopped.
Saunders had surgery the following day and the full rehabilitation process will take several months.
Davison reveals that Saunders had planned to come out for the ninth round - a move that was overruled by head trainer Mark Tibbs.
"There's a very misconstrued opinion of what happened in the corner. Billy Joe came back in the corner and sat down, I came up and whispered in his ear and said 'you've proven you belong at this level and you'll get another shot because this fight was close'. He was growing into the fight but I told him we had to pull it, and that's why he shook his head as if to say 'no, I'm going back out there.' I think he even said something about how he could go orthodox," Davison told IFL TV.
"Let me clear something up about Billy Joe, I won't name any names but he has made fighters who are good quality, who have a lot of heart, quit in the gym. He only shook his head to say 'don't pull the fight' but we had to do what we had to do. Billy Joe would have gone back out for the next round, of course he would, but before the round ended it was clear we had to pull this, it was clear straight away."
